On
October 4 1957, America's self image of being the most technologically
advanced nation on earth, was shattered by the successful launch
of a Soviet satellite, Sputnik, months ahead of its own satellite
program. Four days later President Eisenhower gave a White House
press conference in which he attributed US failure to the fact
that in 1945, the Soviets had captured all of the German rocket
scientists at Peenemunde. But as this book will show, that presidential
statement was far from true. Not only was it the United States
who acquired the best of the scientists, but those that were to
fall into the hands of the Russians, were of limited use. Yet,
with all that talent, America still lost the space race. Senate
investigations into the reasons why soon revealed that a US army
missile designed by a team of Nazi scientists, led by Werner von
Braun could have launched an American satellite a year before
Sputnik, but they had been deliberately denied the opportunity.

Having
lost the first leg of the Space Race, with America still struggling
to get into space, the Soviet Union launched yet another Sputnik,
this time with a dog on board. The perception of Russian prowess
and American impotence were then compounded by the disastrous
launch pad explosion of a US attempt to launch its own satellite.
It was only after this embarrassing failure that America finally
allowed its Germans from Peenemunde to do the job they could have
done back in 1956.

As
this book reveals for the first time, there was a conspiracy against
the German scientists, both in America and the Soviet Union, born
out of racial hatred and their Nazi past. Neither superpower was
willing to allow the glory of being first in space to go to the
men from Peenemunde. The effects of that conspiracy in America
led directly to the election, in 1960, of John F Kennedy. His
Presidential-winning platform had been built on the idea that
America was losing the Space Race and that the Soviets had amassed
a far greater number of long-range missile than the Americans.
If the truth had been known then then the course of history could
have been very different.

Review
by Paul LappenRating
8/10This
book looks at the history of the 'Space Race' between America
and the Soviet Union, and asserts that America could have put
a satellite into orbit a year before the Russians.

At the end of World War II, America and the Soviets were racing
around Germany, gathering up as many German V-2 rocket parts,
engineering drawings and scientists as they could find. This was
to be done before the zones of control in Germany, agreed at Yalta,
came into effect. The German scientists were more interested in
rockets and space flight than in rockets and war. Most of the
Germans surrendered to the Americans, while some surrendered to
the Russians.

After much interrogation and debriefing in Europe, the 'American
Germans' were quietly brought to America, and ended up at Fort
Bliss, near El Paso, Texas. They were intentionally kept away
from any classified information, for obvious reasons, and there
was little or nothing for them to do. The 'Russian Germans' were
not faring much better. They, and their families, were forcibly
deported to Russia, and ended up on a desolate island over 100
miles from Moscow. They had to be segregated from the local population;
as in America, memories fade slowly. For the next 5 years, they
did their best, under terrible working conditions, until being
deported to the West. There is little indication that the Russians
ever used German expertise on their rockets.

Back in America, the Germans were eventually moved to Huntsville,
Alabama. It was much more hospitable than Texas, both technically
and for their families. They were made American citizens in 1955,
so they could access Top Secret information. Throughout the 1950s,
there were a number of government commissions tasked with deciding
what to do about rockets, specifically the ex-Nazis in their employ.
The Stewart Committee had to decide what booster system would
be used to get a satellite into orbit, the proven German system,
or an American system that needed more work. When Wernher von
Braun, the leader of the Germans, learned that the American system
was chosen, he went ballistic. Among the official reasons for
the decision was to keep the military program (on which the Germans
were working) and the civilian programs separate. Among the actual
reasons was plain old racism. It would not be good for America's
rocket to be called the 'Nazi Rocket'.

This book does a wonderful job as a history of the Space Race
from the end of World War II to the first American satellite.
I am not so sure of this as a conspiracy book (the 'conspiracy'
part is only in the last chapter), but it is still well worth
reading.Paul
Lappen (28th February 2010)